Reply With QuoteThat was terrific.Originally Posted by irish_pie
Imagine if Turkey met Germany in the knock-out stage, that would be very tasty.
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Best game of the tournament so far...2 teams absolutely ripping into each other...absolute worldies scored in it too
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That was terrific.
Imagine if Turkey met Germany in the knock-out stage, that would be very tasty.
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Georgia very unlucky to lose that, pretty impressive from them and if they play like that against Czechia I can see then getting out of the group.
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A real joy to watch - proper footie in torrential rain, with both sides going for it. Some lovely attacking football from Georgia - a bit like some of the Slovakian forward play against Belgium yesterday.
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Fantastic game, absolutely wunderbar
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Portugal fall behind against Czechia.
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Another belter there with Croatia vs Albania!
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It became very evident to me in the last World Cup that the raw passion and bravery has been drained from Western European nations but is very much alive and well elsewhere. Technically Western European teams are far superior, but they are now very boring to watch for the most part. I used to think it was bad for the competition if Germany, Spain, Holland etc. were sent home early, but I'm now finding myself wanting as many of these nations out ASAP. Sadly this 24 team format effectively gives them all a free pass to the knock out stage.
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For some countries, playing in a major tournament is a once in a career event and a full scale national occasion back home. They also have more patriotic fervour as they are quite often relatively new countries with more colourful recent histories. If you take the last few decades in Croatia, Turkey, Georgia and Albania there's quite a lot going on in terms of coups, wars, revolutions and having the size and shape of your country changed. They're also not expecting to get past the group stage so in a way this is their final.
I think the larger countries are used to playing a major tournament every two years and are just trying to get through the group stages without wasting too much energy or picking up injuries.
I don't think it's a Western Europe thing necessarily, apart from the fact that most western European nations fall into the category of big footballing countries that are stable and trying to win the tournament. When western nations like Iceland or Wales qualify they have the same enthusiasm and spirit as the ones who've entertained us so far.
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Yes it's very much the underdog fighting spirit and nothing to lose mentality. The smaller nations in the competition are much like the youth players in a team who burst onto the scene with nothing to lose and nothing to fear whereas the larger countries are more like the more experienced players in a squad and take more of an it's a marathon not a sprint mentality.
It's good for the tournament though and keeps the big boys on their toes. Plus as we've seen already not all results are predictable.
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